Lines out the door, 17-hour waits: Alberta Children's Hospital crushed by respiratory infections

Staff at Alberta Children’s Hospital say even seriously sick kids are waiting up to four hours to be triaged, with a packed emergency department and lineups sometimes stretching out the door.

According to staff, at one point on Sunday, 133 patients were waiting to be seen in the emergency department.

Two medical staff members at the hospital have reached out to CTV News, calling the conditions unsafe.

The crush is being driven by a surge in respiratory illnesses, including influenza, RSV and COVID-19.

Other jurisdictions around the world are seeing a similar trend: surging flu-like illnesses hitting unusually early.

"If we're going to see a big rush of this sort of thing, we see it later in the year, but seeing it really (in the) middle of November is really early for this sort of thing," said Dr. Raj Bhardwaj, a physician and urgent care doctor in Calgary.

"We still have a few difficult months to get through respiratory virus season,” said Premier Danielle Smith on Monday.

She says hospital wait times are "unacceptable," and that the current waves of illness and crisis in care are caused by two things.

The first, she says, is a result of pandemic restrictions.

"I think what we're experiencing is because we had such draconian lockdowns over the last three years," Smith said.

"There's just a large number of kids who didn't get that exposure. And so now we have a surge in those cases."

The reality, says Bhardwaj, is more complicated and not yet fully understood.

"'Immunity debt' as some people are calling it has very little – if any – scientific evidence for it," he said.

"It's a complicated problem. And complex systems – complex problems – usually have more than one cause.

"How your immune system works is that if you get exposed to something years later, it still has a memory of how to fight that and it will go ahead and fight that."

The premier also blames conditions in the province's children's hospitals on management.

"We still have not seen an increase in surge capacity at our hospitals. That's a failure of Alberta Health Services management,” the premier said.

Facing similar pressures, Ontario is now recommending – though not mandating – a return to widespread masking in public spaces.

Asked repeatedly Monday about a masking recommendation, Smith would only say this:

"Anyone who feels comfortable to wear a mask should wear a mask. That should be a personal choice."